Ceator God, Destroyer God, Sub-Gods and their priests

[Michael Hopcroft]

On another BBS, i asked about how to model a few basic spells and it got me thinking about a relgiious system for a fantasy world in which there is a God who created the world, an Anti-God who seeks to destroy it, Sub-Gods who work under both with specific sphere\s of influence, and priests who sevre under all of them and gain powers related to the sub-gos's spehere of infleunce.

 

The different cultures of the world would have different names for these beings, but they would all be real, extant, and active in the world.

 

There would be a God of Agriculture who is responsible for feeding the people, a Goddess of ferttility who is responsible for human breding, a Goddess of Lve and Lust who deals with sexuality, a God of Death who seeks to bring death wherevere he can, a Punisher God whose responsbility is the seeking and tormenting of wrongdoers, etc.

 

Humans have free will, so the Gods mainly infu\luence thw orld throught re actions of the Priests. For example, one would never marry a virgin, because at a certain age everyone is intitated by the priests and priestesses of the Goddess of Love and Lust in a coming-of-age ritual. The Goddess of Fertility's priestesses might have belssing to make someone more liekly to have children or ease the pangs of labor. The priests of the God fo Death would spread plagues that the healehr-priests of the God of Health would battle. One could even find oneself in a society wher everyone has clerical magic from one source or another!

 

Can such a system get out of hand very quickly, or would it actually be a playable baiss for a fanatsy campaign world?

[Asperion]

Re: Ceator God, Destroyer God, Sub-Gods and their priests

 

This sounds as though it would be a fun and very playable system. The thing to keep in mind would be that the magic system would be a subtle system, not the wild high power magic that is used in most fantasy games. Even the gods will not be able to through around magic missiles, however the God of Death could induce illness in people, Fertality God could induce sterility, etc. For the most part magic-using human characters will only call upon their god for their spells, not actual spells as most fantasy games portray. In addition most spells will by ritualistic although there could be nothing against preping the spell ahead of time so that only the activation of the spell is required. For the most part the action will be in a non-magical nature between humans and possibly their environment. The most important thing to remember about a system playability is game balance, not the powerlevel played in.

[Eosin]

Re: Ceator God, Destroyer God, Sub-Gods and their priests

 

The idea in general is a sound one but (you knew the but was coming didn't you) the idea of equally powerful gods who initiate rituals at 100% is a little confining. Maybe the preistesses & priests of the god of love don't initiate the citizens of one state where they view her differently - perhaps they perform a function similar to the priestesses of Istar and sit on the wall waiting to initate those novices who seek to learn the mysteries of sex. There is no coersion to plumb the depths of sexuality but the opprotunity is there.

 

Likewise, perhaps people who live in an area with limited resources do not fear death. Perhaps to them, this grim harbinger keeps a balance that allows them to survive. Think of what would happen if death suddenly stopped? Within minutes the insect population would begin to grow and by days end it could be an unparalled plague. Also, how does this fella manage to get everywhere?

 

The final problem is that there must be an external balancing mechanism - else the god of "taking other peoples stuff" soon crushes those who oppose him or the god of death allies with the god of war and defeats the god of healing - allowing death to move unopposed.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Ceator God, Destroyer God, Sub-Gods and their priests

 

This actually sounds rather similar to old Vedic Hinduism, with its conflict between the devas and asuras yet both playing a role in the greater scheme of the universe. Also Zoroastrianism and the opposing poles of benevolent god Ahura Mazda and destructive Ahriman. A survey of those faiths might provide some ideas.

 

I don't see a real difficulty in playing this in a campaign, provided that the opposing forces are essentially balanced. You should make sure that the priests or other characters who serve the "good" faction has access to magic as potent in conflict as the magic for the "evil" faction; don't lay all the combat-effective spells on the servants of gods of destruction.

 

What you're proposing would probably also promote a greater cultural similarity across the game world than is often seen in fantasy campaigns, as the gods would be expected to influence similar behaviors everywhere.

[Markdoc]

Re: Ceator God, Destroyer God, Sub-Gods and their priests

 

This would be quite playable - in fact in many ways it sounds similar to Runequest, where the gods are real, active and each have specific spheres. A great deal of political maneuvering is based on religion.

 

To give some examples, The Lunars - who essentially worship the Goddess of Taking Other People's Stuff - have outlawed the God of the Wind and Storms, because he's the chief god of the people whose stuff they just took. They give his kisman the God of Death the hairy eyeball, but haven't outlawed his worship - because, well, he's a bad one to get on the wrong side of and they have no problem at all with his kinswoman the Goddess of Plenty because she's largely apolitical (everyone's gotta eat, after all).

 

In this setting, although you have different cultures and some overlap in function, it's not like people worship a culture-specific Sky God. There's only one sky god. Different cultures have different reactions to him and different names for him, but everyone agrees it's the same guy (hairy, bad-tempered, likes cold weather, etc). The same for the sun god, the learning god, the god of killing nasty monsters, the many and varied gods of the nasty monsters, the god of cutting people's heads off and keeping them, etc, etc. Last time I looked, there were over 400 gods described in some detail.

 

In this setting, virtually everyone has magic and most people get their magic either from their cult (little spells you can learn and which the priests hoard and dole out in exchange for money/services) or directly from their god (big, nasty spells).

 

A few people have non-god-related magic that is learnt and taught like technology, but everyone else considers them dangerous wierdos.

 

cheers, Mark

[Just A Guy Name]

Re: Ceator God, Destroyer God, Sub-Gods and their priests

 

This would be quite playable - in fact in many ways it sounds similar to Runequest, where the gods are real, active and each have specific spheres. A great deal of political maneuvering is based on religion.

{BIG SNIP}

Heh, cool.. The abridged version of Gloranthan mythology I haven't liked the direction that Greg has been taking it since Hero Wars came out, but it's still my favourite frpg background.

[Alverant]

Re: Ceator God, Destroyer God, Sub-Gods and their priests

 

A good system, but one suggestion is to have some the sub-gods be neither good nor evil. Death can be welcome after a long full life and the person is ready. Love can turn to jealousy and obsession. It may help to have more abstract sub-gods, a sub-god of plants instead of agriculture. Plants can be poisonous, weeds can take over fields, trees compete with each other for sunlight. Agriculture doesn't have much of a dark side. A sub-god of weather, sun/fire, night/cold, and so on.

 

Also you could expand the motivations of the creator/destroyer gods. Why does one create and the other destroy? All the destroyer has to do is succeed once and then what? This may not be the first world. Maybe the destroyer won once and there are "leftovers" from the pervious world(s). They can even be the same one. How can there be death without life? The creator plants the seeds of destruction in each of his worlds. Why? Entertainment, challenge, balance, built in obsolence, this is a god the real reason could be beyond that of us mortals.

 

That would be interesting, a creater/destroyer god who recreates the world as he develops his skills (this god may not be perfect and has the gift to grow and learn). There could be remenants of previous worlds, old sub-gods, primal magics, monsters, etc. OK I'm getting a little off track here...

 

Since these are gods under your control, I'd try to make them to encompass as much as possible. A learning creator god could make a new sub-god if the need arises. (If the current world lasts long enough to develop technology there may be a sub-god appointed who controls it.)

[Asperion]

Re: Ceator God, Destroyer God, Sub-Gods and their priests

 

Also you could expand the motivations of the creator/destroyer gods. Why does one create and the other destroy? All the destroyer has to do is succeed once and then what? This may not be the first world. Maybe the destroyer won once and there are "leftovers" from the pervious world(s). They can even be the same one. How can there be death without life? The creator plants the seeds of destruction in each of his worlds. Why? Entertainment' date=' challenge, balance, built in obsolence, this is a god the real reason could be beyond that of us mortals.[/quote']

 

This sounds like a good idea. One possible idea to explain the big Gods would be that they are players playing some modern computer game. Every character, including the PCs, would be characters in the game. Since the Gods see this as a game, things move at a different rate than they do in what the PCs call the real world. The PCs will not know the way that the Gods see things. This would be a good way to explain why the Gods behave the way that they do.